Adhesion Mechanisms Inspired by Octopus Suckers

Nature offers many interesting adhesion mechanisms where attachment forces can be generated in a binary on/off state. Some biological systems (e.g. octopus, sea urchins, starfishes, etc.) take benefit from amazing features that endow movement in different terrains, concurrently to reliable and energetically advantageous attachment and detachment strategies. From an engineering point of view, the study of efficient attachment and detachment mechanisms is extremely interesting and deserves attention for the development of new artificial strategies in robotics. This work describes an adhesion solution inspired by the octopus suckers, starting by a deep investigation of the biological features that allow octopus to perform a variety of complex movements 1. The final goal is to identify specifications and physical principles useful to conceive innovative bio-inspired adhesion mechanisms 2. With this approach in mind, we propose a study to fully understand the adhesion natural phenomenon in octopus, which is still not completely clear.